Turkish Press Applauds Ter Petrosyan Statemen’s

YEREVAN (Noyan Tapan)–"Ter-Petrosyan is a realistic leader. He knows very well that Armenia needs Turkey for it to come out to the West. Yerevan has understood that it will not be able to establish normal relations with Turkey until the Karabakh conflict is settled and 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territories are returned. Moreover–if there is no peace–one can hardly hope that the oil pipeline will traverse Armenia and despite the fact that Armenia had signed an agreement on friendship with Russia for 25 years–we believe that Ter-Petrosyan is not much content with such relations with Russia and the given agreement is a sort of an insurance against Azerbaijan and Turkey. If relations with Turkey are normalized–Armenia will weaken its ties with Russia," the Turkish Cumhuriyet daily wrote after Levon Ter-Petrosyan addressed the media for the first time in five years.

The daily believes that for Ter-Petrosyan it is rather important to normalize relations with Turkey–"In fact–to normalize relations with Turkey the President has removed a clause regarding the genocide from the Constitution and banned the activities of the [Armenian Revolutionary Federation] Dashnak Party–Turkey’s enemy," the article contended.

Cumhuriyet wrote that the United States and Russia have contributed to Armenia’s peaceful attitude. Russia and the US want peace to be restored in the region since they are much interested in its oil reserves."

Arkady Ghoukassian–who won in the election and became the President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic–is an ultranationalist and a supporter of Karabakh’s independence. However–he would not long resist the pressure from Armenia–Russia and the US.

"Turkey is also much interested in improving relations with Armenia. Experts say that after peace is established–Turkey’s exports will grow by half a billion dollars. The cheapest option for transportation of oil from Baku to Ceyhan will be realized. Simultaneously–after rapprochement between Yerevan and Ankara–the Armenian lobby of the US will cease its anti-Turkish activities," the Cumhuriyet predicted.

The Turkish "Radikal" newspaper–also in response to Ter-Petrosyan’s news conference wrote that there are obvious differences in statemen’s made recently by the Armenian Foreign Minister Alexander Arzoumanian and the Levon Ter-Petrosyan.

The newspaper noted that Arzoumanian addressed the United Nations and demanded that the right of the Karabakh people to self-determination be recognized. According to him–the right to self-determination is an integral part of human rights.

Meanwhile–Ter-Petrosyan "convened an extraordinary news conference and demanded that the Armenia’s of Karabakh should forget about a possibility of unifying with Armenia. The official offered a new scheme of settling the Karabakh issue–consisting of three phases. Such commen’s by Ter-Petrosyan created an impression that the Armenian leadership which until recently was defending the independence of Karabakh–has discarded its hard line under the international pressure," the newspaper explained–adding that the most surprising is that just a couple of days ago Arzoumanian spoke about the right to self-determination and demanded that the Karabakh issue be resolved through direct talks–involving Azerbaijan–Karabakh and Armenia.

"Meanwhile–Levon Ter-Petrosyan said nothing about the right of the Karabakh people to self-determination," declared the piece.

"Arzoumanian insists that the economic relations between Armenia–Karabakh and Azerbaijan will develop provided the Karabakh issue is solved the way the Karabakh people want," newspaper stressed. 7

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